Peerless Group MF arm plans weekly SIP

KOLKATA: Peerless Funds Management Co, the mutual fund subsidiary of the Peerless Group, proposes to sell systematic investment plan or popularly SIP in small weekly instalments. It also plans to reduce the minimum investment to Rs 500, its chief executive officer Akshay Gupta said.

A new entrant in the country's asset management space, the company has devised this strategy to reach out to the poor customer segment, which had so far been catered to by its parent Peerless General Finance & Investment Co. (PGFI).

Peerless has a captive base of some 80-lakh small depositors, who represent the underprivileged class, mainly comprising hawkers, rickshaw pullers and small traders.

"We will try to capture the flavour of their deposit habits," Mr Gupta told ET. "We will look at the poor retail segment in a very big way because they were Peerless' customers," he said

The company has sought market regulator Security & Exchange Board of India's approval for weekly SIP and expects to launch the product after six months. A large chunk of PGFI's depositors used to save daily or weekly.

As Reserve Bank of India has now barred PGFI from collecting fresh deposits, its wholly owned asset management subsidiary prepares itself to tap this segment.